The demilitarized zone between North and South Korea was once considered the most dangerous place in the world.
It was the site of the biggest military conflict of the Cold War. It separated sworn enemies, each backed by a nuclear power.
A wrong move by either side could trigger the Third World War.
But while the DMZ is still desperately dangerous – particularly now that North Korea has its own nuclear weapons – it is no longer the world’s most dangerous spot.
That honour belongs to Syria, where the world’s great and not-so-great powers are jockeying for position as they try to upstage one another.
The crisis over Syrian President Bashar Assad’s alleged chemical weapons attack against rebels in the Damascus suburb of Douma is only the latest chapter in this game.
The Syrian conflict began seven years ago as a popular rebellion against a dictatorial regime. It soon became a civil war with religious overtones before morphing into a series of proxy wars.
Saudi Arabia and its allies funded Sunni militias (some of them terrorist) fighting Assad. The U.S. tried, with little success, to find moderate rebel groups that it could arm and fund.
Kurdish militias in Syria made deals – first with Assad and later with the U.S. – designed to help them eventually carve out an independent state.
Turkey funded and armed its own militias, in part to maintain influence in a country that historically was part of its empire, in part to counter the Kurds.
Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah intervened on Assad’s side to protect their Shiite co-religionists from the Sunni militias and to expand Tehran’s influence in the region.
Israel intervened to counter Hezbollah and Iran.
The U.S. and its allies, including Canada, eventually intervened directly to fight the extremists known as Daesh, or the Islamic State. Russia intervened directly to prevent the Assad regime from collapsing.
There are now 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria and an unknown number of so-called Russian mercenaries. The two forces clashed in a bloody battle last February.
American troops have also fought Iranian-backed militias in Syria and shot down a Syrian warplane.
There is a high risk of conflict between Turkey and U.S. troops backing Kurdish militias that Ankara calls terrorists. Turkey and the U.S. are both NATO members.
This is the backdrop to the current poison gas crisis. On Saturday, residents of rebel-held Douma reported a deadly chemical attack by the regime. While the attack has not been independently verified, U.S. President Donald Trump was apparently convinced. He tweeted his intention to launch missiles against the Assad regime. French President Emmanuel Macron signalled he would support him.
The Syrian regime denies it was behind any poison gas attack. The Russians deny that a chemical attack took place.
In any case, whether because of the alleged chemical attack or weeks of devastating conventional bombing, Douma fell. Rebels abandoned their last foothold in the suburb and government forces moved in.
Should Assad be punished for waging chemical warfare? There is, of course, the possibility that this time he’s innocent. A 2016 report by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons found one instance where anti-regime rebels used poison gas. Theoretically, this could be another.
Theoretically, the Russians could be right and there was no chemical attack at all.
But the real reason to hold off is that a serious attack on Assad is too dangerous. Russia has signalled that it won’t stand by and allow the U.S. to trash its ally.
Matters could spiral out of control.
Syria is a disaster. There are already enough players with conflicting aims making war inside this small country. The world does not need any more.
Thomas Walkom is a national affairs writer.